Where’s the gate?

Almost every internet idea that I’ve had pitched to me includes some sort of gate. A subscription, a paid entrance, even just a form to fill out.

Don’t gate.

The more you can be generous with your content, the more traffic you’ll build. The more traffic you build, the less you’ll have to ask of each of them.

My favorite example of this is Mint.com. I have a total site crush on Mint. You see, Mint is run by the folks at Intuit, the same people who used to sell you Quicken for $25.99. What they found was that there was more money in the traffic than there was in selling discs.

So they moved their gate. They used the technology they had to track transactions and gave it away. Now, they sell the access to people who they know are qualified and interested. (Hey, Ed, you seem to like to dine out, try the new Chase credit card that gives you 3X points on restaurant purchases.)

And people are OK getting sold to as long as there is some utility in it for them.

So what gates can you bring down? How can you make it easier for people to experience your brand? How can you make it more shareable? How can you be more generous?

Build community, build utility, build traffic. And knock down gates wherever possible.